The ICES Oceanographic Data Centre acted as data centre for the TRACTOR projector. TRACTOR was designed to:
1) describe and quantify the present circulation and water mass transformation processes in the Nordic Seas regions using primarily observations of the long term spread of a tracer purposefully released into the Greenland Sea Gyre in 1996.
2) Improve our understanding of ocean processes critical to the thermohaline circulation in the Nordic Seas regions so as to be able to predict how this region may respond to climate change.
3) Assess the role of mixing and ageing of water masses on the carbon transport and the role of the thermohaline circulation in carbon storage using water transports and mixing coefficients derived from the tracer distribution.
Data set is relatively small - ca 500 stations, 20 cruises.